Photography in the Shadow of Death: A Conversation with Touhami Ennadre

Okwui Enwezor: I thought we should start our conversation by going back to your early beginning, to your starting point in photography. What led you to become a photographer or, if you will, what made you start working in photography? Touhami Ennadre: I cannot speak about photography without speaking about my personal life. It's difficult, because they are both connected. And that is what brought me to photography. OE: How is your personal life connected to your photography ? TE: You see, I grew up in Courneuve, outside of Paris, which you know of, and we did not have many choices there: either you were a criminal or an athlete. If you will, my mother put a camera in my hands not long before her death because she was afraid I would become a drug user or a thief, or something along that line. OE: This sounds rather dramatic and I suppose not necessarily unusual for many young Arab immigrants in France who find themselves at the crossroads of their destiny in a tough, hostile environment. So your mother was instrumental in turning you to photography ? But did that have to do with the fact that your mother was interested in photography as such and saw photography as a medium through which you can make your living and create a new identity that will then lead you outside of the milieu, the context, of the ghetto? TE: No, my mother's sole obsession was for me not to become a criminal. That's what it was. I'm sorry, it's very difficult to speak so quickly of my intimate life. My mother made tapestries so I grew up with color, in her studio. There was no electricity and no roof in the open-air studio where she worked. At night, when she was weaving, I held a candle for her while she worked. And I found that aesthetically the illumination that came from the candle has taught me a lot. I had a project , an aesthetic that I didn't even know but that I would discover in time through my work with my mother . And I remember when I was a child and I was looking at the black sky at night where there were only stars, which at the time I mistook for human beings, I was scared, I was really scared that something would happen to us. And later, years later, in my way, technically in my way of developing photographs, of putting black around the image, putting light just where it is needed and not somewhere else, all this I owe to my mother. That was my schooling. OE: Could you place for me precisely during which period this interaction between you and your mother took place and where. Were you already living in Paris or was this still in Morocco? TE: Here again, you touch on an intimate question and I don't really want to say. Well, I'll briefly survey it. No, it is a number of different things. It happened with a departure point in Morocco and continued on in France. But what was striking and sad in France is that we had immigrated to a different country, a different culture, a different language where we didn't have the possibility of emigrating. We remained immigrants even when we returned home to Morocco, and in France we were still immigrants, so we were inbetween . So I grew up between two cultures. In the beginning it was painful because we were always strangers. But in time, I began to discover how beneficial it was for me. But what is very hard is to remain inbetween , as we say "the ass between two chairs." But the in-between, obviously, if one has the means can also be very beneficial in one's life. That's what I loved before September 11, that's what I loved about New York. I felt at home. There were no strangers, that was an incredible feeling, to walk down the street, everything was possible. It was as if there was not a people but people, not like when one arrives in a village. Here you belonged, all...